Finding a rival that understands FIFA 16 is not a challenging venture

This year’s FIFA is more measured and methodical, scaling back the importance of pace and power to a fault. Matches can be tentative tete-a-tetes, with scrappy midfield battles replacing zipped through balls and the domination of sprinting powerhouses like Cristiano Ronaldo. Now FIFA favours recycled possession, smart passing and angled runs. To enable this, FIFA has extended extra measures of control over both dribbling and passing. Squeeze L1 and you can manoeuvre your player around the ball without touching it, shielding possession or selling the opposition a dummy. You can’t just slam the sprint button and whizz past an opposing full-back, you need to use pitch smartly, changing pace and knocking the ball into open space. Press R1 while passing, meanwhile, and you’ll deliver a quicker ‘bullet pass’, zipping the ball along the turf.

Aside from enhancements to core gameplay, and adding women's teams, FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) is back. This is a feature that lets you put together a ragtag team and turn it into a championship winning outfit. But doing so takes a lot of time and energy and involves acquiring players through card packs. Not so with another mode, FIFA Ultimate Team Draft. This mode lets you experience the best of FUT in just a few matches. You'll build a team, filling out each position and play four matches in a row to win rewards for your club such as rare players, boosts to attributes and coins that you can use in FIFA ultimate team.

The most exceptional new feature in FIFA 16 is that Women’s international teams have been included for the first time ever in the FIFA series, and excitingly are not just a swap of models and skins. The female players move differently, control differently, and feel like a completely different game. Lighter on their feet than their male counterparts, the women’s games feel quicker and sharper. When not progressing my character through career mode, the Women’s International Team game was a consistent go-to; seeing Solo, Morgan, and Rapinoe take the pitch via my gaming console was long overdue, but still very welcome.

The upshot of FIFA 16's familiarity and accessibility is that there are a lot of players of a high quality. Finding a rival that understands the game, whether online or in person, is not a challenging venture. This makes for matches that are keenly fought, with the game smoothly flowing back and forth between different phases of attack and defence. The difference between winning and losing against human players continues to come down to who makes the fewest mistakes, rather than an intelligent strategy, but the extra pressure of these matches makes them consistently compelling.

The tweaks made to the passing, on the other hand, feel much sharper and more responsive. Players move the ball quickly, and the developers have added a new Driven Pass that pings a line drive along the ground to teammates. It's easy to give the ball away in this manner, but the Driven Pass technique is useful for driving the ball onto a player's foot in a limited window, and can help setup counter-attacks very quickly. There's also a new feature you can toggle on or off called The Trainer, which highlights your player and suggests commands depending on the context. This helps new players come to grips with the game, and is useful for returning players familiarizing themselves with changes to the gameplay from last year.

FIFA 16's rebalanced gameplay makes it the most realistic entry in the series to date, but potentially, that won't sit well with those who prefer the fast, constant, end-to-end thrills of previous installments. This year's game still plays incredibly well as a whole, though, and by forcing you to rely more on the tactical aspects of the sport, it arguably offers up a more rewarding experience. With so much content on offer, both old and new, alongside its many accessibility options, it's still hard not to recommend FIFA to footy fans of all ages and skill levels.